When I saw the kids from Glee sing at the World Series earlier this month, I was surprised to see that Kevin McHale, the actor who plays disabled gleester Artie, wasn't disabled in real life.

Not sure why this surprised me; non-disabled actors have been playing disabled characters for decades. Maybe it's because McHale handles his wheelchair so well, or because Glee seems to be pretty proud of its not-calling-attention-to-itself brand of diversity. Maybe I just figured that, in 2009, hiring a disabled actor to play a disabled character wasn't a big deal.

I guess I was wrong. And I'm not the only one who's puzzled and disappointed by the show's decision. Tonight's episode, in which the gleesters rally around Artie so he can travel with them to the regionals, is the jumping-off point for an AP article on how disappointed disabled actors are about the casting of McHale in the role.

FOX's new family Friday night sitcom Brothers seems like a relatively (see what I did there?) low key and uninspiring bit of prime time. And that's coming from someone who hasn't seen it yet. Call it my "suck sense." (I see Cop Rock.)

It is nice, however, to see the multi-camera, live audience sitcom making a comeback to the big three networks (four if you count the CW). They almost feel like a warm hug from the past, reminding me that they haven't forgotten me or the shows I remembering watching instead of getting regular exercise or dating.

The same things can be said for the show's official press kit.

While it was a little odd that the "screener" of Glee we got was the exact same episode that FOX aired after American Idol in the spring, the rest of these shows were truly new. Dramatic offerings included FOX's loose adaptation of the DC Comics property Human Target and Past Life. On the comedy side they offered us screeners for The Cleveland Show, Brothers, Sons of Tucson and the aforementioned Glee.

After enduring the screener for Do Not Disturb last season on FOX, I could only hope that these offerings were at least better than that offense to the senses. And they were. Well, most of them. Unfortunately, it seems that FOX has at least one Do Not Disturb in them every season. Other than that, one of these shows was far better than I expected, another a bit worse, and a third one stands as one of the better pilots I've ever seen.